Douglas

And you then have to take into account that their mana often generates mana for everyone else in their group, via Vampiric Touch. There are definitely times when throwing the Innervate onto the Shadow Priest is your biggest net win, even if your goal is actually to ensure there's enough mana for healing. My tankadin often throws up Judgment of Wisdom if there's a shadow priest in my group -- the mana generation feedback loop can get crazy wonderful.

 

Vernichter

That wasn't what Beef was getting at. Its clear that giving the innervate to shadowpriests is the most efficient way to use it because of the synergy with Vamperic Touch. However, the more interesting question is whether or not the gain from Innervate + [Earring of Soulful Meditation] is such that the spirit trinket provides a better return for the group than a DPS trinket would in the same slot.

The relevant questions then become as follows:

• How much mana (aka damage) would a DPS trinket in the slot provide to the party for a given fight length?

• Is the shadowpriest doing a sustainable maximum damage cycle for that same fight length (assuming that they already get an innervate, chain-pot, etc)?

• If not, would the extra 4K+ mana from innervate with the Earring allow the priest to do a higher damage cycle for the fight length?

• Lastly, does the difference in cycle damage exceed the damage contributed by the damage trinket?

My offhand hunch would be that the extra mana from the Earring does not justify the damage loss, but that's purely based on the hunch that the extra mana wouldn't actually translate to a higher amount of damage for current fight lengths. Hopefully Siawyn or one of the other shadowpriests on this board can provide a concrete response.

 

Pyxis

So, I'm curious as to what trinkets everyone is wearing? Also, do you get your LB stacks rolling at the beginning of fights and swap them out for regen trinkets or just keep the +heal trinkets?

Right now I'm rocking Essence of the Martyr - Items - World of Warcraft and Hibernation Crystal - Items - World of Warcraft on most fights and swapping in Rejuvenating Gem - Items - World of Warcraft or Alchemist's Stone - Items - World of Warcraft where I need the mana. I've also been considering dragging some guildies out to kill Hakkar to pick up Zandalarian Hero Charm - Items - World of Warcraft.

What are all of you guys doing for trinkets?

 

Ribeye

For me, it is often fight dependant...but, If i think I will be taking a mana pot at all I usually use my alchemy stone and rejuvenating gem. If not, or just for trash, i roll with the lowercity prayerbook and again the rejuve gem.

On one hand, it would be nice to upgrade the rejuve gem seeing as Its the only item I have kept from Vanilla, and yet, I'm just glad I got one before we stopped running BWL.

 

• Tecton

ZHC is still the best for lifebloom stacking, if you're confident you can keep it alive, otherwise I'd imagine you'd be better with something else.

And I barely remove my alchemist's stone these days, the stats are just awesome, regardless of what roll you're playing.

 

dukes

Surely [Essence of the Martyr] is a better option than the [Zandalarian Hero Charm], because although it doesn't stack quite as highly (408 compared to 381) it gives a passive bonus all the time which is well worth it. Having both would be rather good though. Generally I use the [Bangle of Endless Blessings] with the EotM when I heal, just because the mana regen and on-use for procs/out of 5sec/innervate is really nice when combined with the stacking +heal from EotM (and the proc gives spirit a lot more value).

 

Ryla

Again it depends heavily on what role you're taking in the raid. If you're limited to purely healing MTs, then it would be more beneficial - due to the efficiency - to use the double trinket Lifebloom stacks. If you're taking more of a raid/all-round healing role, then you're likely be avoided the 5sr more likely that not, and in which case I'd say you're better off with the Bangles and a passive +healing trinket.

Take my advice with a grain of salt however. I've been raiding with this Druid for the most part as a tank. Now that we've made the shift into 25 man, I'll be focusing solely on healing as ToL. While I currently place highly in the healing charts (which I value little anyway - more of an indication of my playstyle) after reading this thread it wouldn't be an overstatement to say I could totally change my healing style.

I'm usually raid healing for the most part during trash, but I will always keep LB and Rejuv running on atleast 1 tank. Purely from getting up to speed in this thread I'll be sticking more closely to 1 role and maximising on that. I do feel the healing at the moment is very "whack-a-mole" as you all say, so my absense from either general healing or Tank only wouldn't disadvantage either of the two.

 

Pyxis

Yeah, I guess I agree with you about EoTM vs. Zandalarian Hero Charm. It really never penetrated my brain that they were so close in total healing when popped. I've found that except for some really heavy healing fights I'm fine on mana without using one of the regen trinkets and I'm finding that I really like the short cooldown on the Hibernation Crystal. I find that despite my best efforts almost all fights cause me to drop the lifebloom stack on the tank at some point and Hibernation Crystal is almost always up when I want it.

I've always loved passive effects on trinkets and valued them much, much higher than any kind of on use effect. These days however with the mechanics of LB stacking, I'm having trouble justifying using anything but a click trinket. For example the Hibernation Crystal with its 90s cooldown is effectively turning out to be a +350 healing trinket for me as the cooldown is virtually always up if I'm forced to rebuild my LB stacks for any reason. I think Mother Shahraz was a great example of this last night, on that fight I maintain LB stacks on all the tanks and that's pretty much it. Mama Shahraz was loving me last night and hit me with FA 5 times on our kill which meant I was rebuilding those stacks a lot.

 

◊ Noressa

Currently I mix up between Alchemists Stone, the Scryers Bloodgem and Essence of the Martyr. (If I'm just going for max +heal, I put my Scarab of the Infinite Cycle on, but that's rarer and rarer.) Same holds true for the Rejuv Gem. If it's a fight where I need more mana/5, I just use the Alchemists Stone. For most fights, especially where I can get the tank amped before I trinket, I'll use the Bloodgem and the Essence, then swap the Alchemists Stone in for the fight and keep the Essence if/when my initial stack falls off. That way I still have the essence to trinket while the fight is still going on. In a perfect world where I never falter w/ refreshing I'd probably put the Rejuv gem back in, but I don't trust my timing yet.

 

Ailetha

Many people maintain that TOL aura is garbage because of this question:

'Why use Tree of Life Aura when you have Devotion Aura?'

I've really tried to find some formulas and/or numbers so that I can put a comparison to Devotion Aura (how much HP it saves) versus how much hp from the +healing that a TOL aura provides.

Really, HP is the only common ground the two have, or the only ground on which I think they can be fairly compared. One saves it, the other provides it. So I am going to compare the two on that note.

The devotion aura provides .08-0.1% damage reduction.

I submit that if a tree were to stack spirit, the +healing (or rather, HP) provided by the tree on the MT group would surpass (in straight up HP) that provided by the devotion aura's 0.08-0.1% damage mitigation (or 861-1205 armor); that the HP provided by the TOL aura versus the HP that devotion aura provides/saves is larger.

If you assign three to five people healing one or another in the MT group, (i.e. one healing offtank, another healing a second offtank, two-three or more healing MT) with a tree, you're talking (The numbers are from my own stats, 800 Spirit when fully raid buffed, not including Raven Goddess Idol, obviously they'd be different for different people and gear.) +800-1000 more bonus healing spread out over the MT group (which most likely has half/most of the damage takers) than you did before.



This is +800-1000 bonus healing (or more, depending on the number of healers assigned to the people in the MT group) versus 0.08-0.1 damage reduction. This is the advantage of having a druid stack spirit in TOL form.

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...ks/Ailetha.png

 

dukes

The difference between devotion aura and ToL aura is that devotion cuts down on how much hits do, rather than making heals heal more. There's a subtle difference in that your tank can die by 10 health when not using devotion, while using devotion will mean he survives by 200.

Top rank improved devotion aura with 2t5 bonus is: 861*1.4 + 350 = 1205.4 + 350 = 1555 armour extra.

Assuming you're buffing a warrior on 18000 armour (relatively average imo, maybe even slightly above average):

Levels 60+ DR% = Armor / (Armor+400+85*(Level+4.5*(Level-59)))

18000 / (18000+400+85*(70+4.5*(70-59) = ~63% damage reduction

19555 / (19555+400+85*(70+4.5*(70-59) = ~65% damage reduction

Or a relative damage reduction of 2/37 = 5.4% damage reduction total.

That's the power of devotion aura, not your estimated 0.08-0.1% damage reduction (where the hell did you get that from anyway - making numbers up is never a good thing to do).

Compare this to the 150 +healing (from a druid with 600 spirit, which I would guess is around average if you aren't going all out for spirit) you get from a tree, and then consider that some of that will be overheal. Devotion has the advantage of never being overheal.

The entire problem with the tree aura is that the majority of raids will prefer a group such as tank/tank/shaman/paladin/warlock. Quite often we use a druid instead of the warlock, but it depends on the fight and what classes are in the raid.

 

◊ Noressa

Doesn't the added armor also add onto other defensive stats though, for warriors? It's not a simple straight armor comparison at that point.

Why not have both in the MT group? We usually run a tree, paladin, lock and either shaman or another warrior in group 1. Going for the aura is nice, you just have to balance your own personal mana regeneration for the fight with the bonus from the tree aura. As long as you aren't running out of mana, sure, stack spirit. Best case scenario you only need 1 druid to stack spirit. The extra +50 you'd get the aura (400 spirit vs. 600) is nice but not needed. (In my experience.)

 

Ailetha

...I wouldn't post them here if I was just going to 'make them up.' I wouldn't be at EJ if I was just going to 'make up numbers' and I wouldn't even bother arguing or wasting my time forming a coherent post.

Devotion Aura is 861 not improved. Improved is 1205.

Formula Used: (Armor / (Armor+400+85*(Level+4.5*(Level-59)))

There is a similar but not quite the same formula on WoWWiki but alot of their formulas are Pre-BC so I am leery of using them.

As I maintained before, I compared them only on HP gained and nothing else. As I also said, one provides and the other saves. You then repeated the exact same thing I uttered with, "The real difference is that one prevents it and one heals over it" as if I didn't just type that very thing in.

So, please do not accuse me of doing such a thing; you could have just asked me where I got the numbers from and left it at that. That's pretty rude of you.

EDIT: Also, just to clarify, there really is no point in putting a tree in the MT group if they aren't going to stack spirit. 600 fully buffed spirit in all Karazhan gear is pretty terrible for a spirit-stacking druid. So I'm not comparing a non-stacking tree druid to a devo aura, nor would I ever push for one in the MT group.


That has been my contention since I started this druid. Either stack it and put them in the MT group or don't stack it and don't put them in there. I stack because my guild puts me in the MT group; if they didn't put me in the MT group, I wouldn't bother gimping myself as such. I'm making a case for why it's a good idea to have one tree druid stack spirit for the MT group, not why every tree druid should stack spirit. Please don't confuse the two.

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...ks/Ailetha.png

 

◊ Noressa

Formulasamage reduction - WoWWiki, the Warcraft wiki
This I believe is the up to date formula page which includes 1-59 and level 70 formulas. I'm not sure what your argument is on this point. That druids should replace paladins in group 1 for the aura? That it's more useful? They both help, though the active armor reduction is more beneficial then a heal, as the heals are after damage is taken, rather then directly affecting how much a tank gets hit for in the first place.

 

Blackpatch

Don't Tree of Life Aura and Devotion Aura stack? Why do you have to choose between them? I understand the generic question of tree vs X other-class-with-party-buff in MT group but why is it being phrased this way?

CONSERVE YOUR RAGE AND LUST

 

Ailetha

When I tell people I stack spirit because I'm in the MT group, 99.9% of the time, their response is, and I quote:

"Why would they put you in there when they could mitigate it with a pally aura? TOL what?"



I am simply elaborating on exactly why they would. There are plenty of posts here asking that very question. I mean, even most TOL druids say this to me.

EDIT: To Lord Beef: we do a warlock with three tanks, and the fifth is me. Usually the warlock always stays in the group. However, nothing prevents them from doing just that.

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...ks/Ailetha.png

 

Ailetha

Hardly any of the healing formulas on WoWWiki are updated, so I have zero reason to think any of the others are also.

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...ks/Ailetha.png

 

dukes

You're confusing the difference between no druid and a druid with 800 spirit, with what people are saying which is a difference between a druid with 600 and a druid with 800 spirit, which is actually +50 healing difference. Giving up the amount of +healing and mana/5 you need to get that extra 200 spirit just isn't worth it in my opinion (which is what this entire thing boils down to - personal opinion).

I still want to know where you pulled that 0.08-0.1% damage reduction from Devotion aura from. You gave no evidence to back it up and you still haven't justified where it came from.

I'm also amazed you don't use a shaman in the tank group (although I assume that's because of lack of them rather than actually not wanting to put one in).

 

Vernichter

Dukes and Ailetha used the same formula for armor reduction (compare posts #136 and #138), but Ailetha used it incorrectly.

Ailetha entered armor values of 861 and 1205 (representing untalented and talented devotion without the set bonus) into the armor formula and got outputs of 0.0754 and 0.1059. He misinterpreted those as percentages, hence the "0.08% to 0.1%" change he noted. More importantly, what he calculated was the mitigation of 861 total AC and 1205 total AC. In point of fact, a player with exactly 861 AC at level 70 would take 1-(0.0754)% damage from incoming physical attacks. Thus Ailetha was wrong on two accounts; he was wrong in interpreting the outcome as a percentage and he was wrong in that he did not take armor scaling into account.

As Dukes showed, the real gain from Devotion is the relative change in damage coming to the tank, and it is dependant on the tank's base AC. Thus Dukes compared the damage reduction from a tank with a nominal AC level (18000) vs. the same tank with devotion. If the set bonus is neglected, the second AC value for comparison would be 18000+1205=19205 AC. In the first case the tank would take:

(1-0.6303)*damage = 0.3697*damage on each hit.

In the second case the tank would take:

(1-0.6453)*damage = 0.3547*damage on each hit.

Thus the relative reduction in incoming damage would be:

(0.3697-0.3547)/(0.3697) = 3.9%.

With the set bonus, this increases to 5.4% as Dukes noted.

 

Lazare

Alright, using your formula, and assuming base armor of 18k:

DR formula = Armor / (Armor+400+85*(Level+4.5*(Level-59)))

DR without Devotion = 18000 / (18000+400+85*(70+4.5*(70-59)))
DR without Devotion = 63.03%

DR with unimproved Devotion = 18861 / (18861+400+85*(70+4.5*(70-59)))
DR with unimproved Devotion = 64.11%

Delta DR = 1.08%

Or if we assume a raid boss is hitting for 20k raw damage you'd go from being hit for 7984 to 7761. That's a delta of 223 per hit, which is a 2.79% reduction in actual damage received (and arguably a more useful metric than looking purely at raw mitigation, since the value of mitigation is non-linear).

So...yeah, I'm still left with Dukes' question. Where the hell DID you get your numbers from? Not saying I think you made them up, but I do kind of suspect you had a pretty serious error in your calculations, since you seem to be off by about an order of magnitude.

Alright, +200 healing applied to all heals on the MT group? If we assume 4 holy priests benefit, and if we further assume they spend their time casting GHeals wuth a 116% coefficient, and that they average 1 GHeal every 4s, then we get benefits of:

200 * 116% * 4 / 4 = 232 HP/s

To contrast, the Devotion aura is knocking off 223 per hit...if you assume the boss has an attack speed of 2.0s, then that's 112 HP/s "saved".

That math is ugly as hell, but it at least gives an idea of the ballpark effects, and I'd say they're at least somewhat comparable. The impact of ToL aura from a druid which has stacked spirit is almost certainly better than non-talented Devotion; even ToL aura from a "normal" tree is probably better. On the other hand, if you have Imp Devotion aura and the 2p t5 bonus, the aura goes from 861 AC to 1555 AC - almost twice the effect, and hard to beat. Of course reducing incoming damage is better than boosting incoming heals, since the former makes spikes more survivable - but on the other hand magic damage bypassed armor entirely...and so on.

So yeah, if you have to choose between a paladin and a tree druid for the 5th MT slot, then rough NapkinMath(tm) would indicate it makes sense to use whichever player is specced/geared for that role. If neither (or both) are, then it'd depend heavily on the details of the fight and on healer assignments. It doesn't look to me like the benefit of either aura is high enough to make one always win if they're competing for the same slot.


On the other hand, should they be competing? Unless you're sticking a shaman in the tank group for GoA, you should have room for both. So how good is GoA? That's um...2.6% dodge, if memory serves. Offhand, that seems weaker than either Devotion or ToL. (2.6% dodge is a flat 2.6% off incoming damage; adding a non-talented Devotion aura to a tank with 18k AC is 2.8% off incoming damage.)

Edit: I knew I was forgetting something - GoA provides AC to the tank as well. For a warrior that's another ~154 AC, which is worth another ~0.5% off incoming damage. At 18k AC, GoA should net out to about a 3.1% off incoming damage which is better than the 2.8% from untalented Devotion.

 

◊ Lrigatonmai

GoA or WF, stoneskin, strength of earth, some flame totem.

Obviously I don't know shaman all that well, but I do know they're a little more than just GoA.

Though, given my experience I'd expect most alliance guilds don't run with that many of them.

Note: The statement above is probably a lie.

 

• Playered

Not to mention Totems and Aura's work passivly with no 'sacrifice' involved on the person casting it (well the + 100 damage & healing totem).
To get a strong enough ToL aura you need to reduce your stats, healing, or mana regeneration in some way or form.

 

Pyxis

We generally use a shaman in the MT group but it's for WF rather than GoA.

To respond to the spirit stacking part of this thread, I think you're not only underestimating the effect of Devo Aura, you're also overestimating the effect of the ToL Aura. I'm finding that the further we go in BT the fewer healers we have on the MT. Virtually all fights have us using 2-4 healers on the MT so I'm content to wear 550 buffed spi as opposed to say 750. Worst case that's 50 less healing x4 or 200 less effective +heal. Of course by doing that I can wear a better weapon and put +81 healing on it so I'm probably gaining at least 100 of that effective healing back with my gear alone. The fact that I can apply that +100 healing to any member of the raid that I'd like makes me pretty comfortably with that choice.

 

• Playered

The other mention is that the 'prevention' auras and such will work against every single attack that lands, where-as the ToL aura is not always going to be used effectivly, especially not on a MT who will always get overhealed in some way or form.

 

Lazare

Pyxis:

1) We don't typically use WF on the MT. If we're using warriors as OTs it can be helpful, but most of our OTs are druids so... Perhaps as we progress further that will change? Of course, part of that is we're lucky to have two shamans; we're trying to recruit more but they're still pretty rare alliance side.

2) Yes, the tradeoff needed to stack spirit is obviously important. Since 25% of spirit is applied as healing to ~4 people (depending on the fight), it seems like if you're giving up a point of +healing you'd want to get at least 1 spirit in return; since spirit is more expensive in terms of itemization budget, it should be very rare that stacking spirit proves profitable.

3) I found the discussion interesting mostly because, as a raid leader, I had been making a point of stacking a paladin into the MT group, but usually not a tree druid. Looking at the math, I think that's a mistake; a "normal" ToL aura is perhaps not the best possible buff the MT group can get, but it's certainly decent.